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Anonymous

#149912 Thu, 20 Oct 05 06:31 PM

Is "Guess who's coming to dinner" a question or a command?

Would you say:

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Guess who's coming to dinner.

Is the question mark appropriate punctation for the phrase?

thanks

Anonymous

Question marks

nona the brit

#149984 Thu, 20 Oct 05 11:26 PM

Could be a question, a command or a rhetorical statement.

nona the brit

Joined on Wed, Sep 22 2004

England

Veteran Member (11,358)

The name says it all.

Savvysavz

#149990 Thu, 20 Oct 05 11:37 PM

Hi Anonymous,

Imagine two people (A and B) are having a conversation and A says to B:

Guess who's coming to dinner.

This means a third person who is familiar to both A and B is going to eat with them. While A is aware of the identity, B is unaware so A wants B to guess who it is.

You can write it with an exclamation too:

Guess who's coming to dinner!

The situation is the same as I described above, but with more thrill.

The question mark is not necessary in this case.

Savvy

Savvysavz

Joined on Tue, Aug 23 2005

French in no man's land

Regular Member (549)

Hell! There are no rules here! We're trying to accomplish something! (Thomas Edison)

Conversations, Question marks

CalifJim

#150066 Fri, 21 Oct 05 03:32 AM

"Guess who's coming to dinner." is a command. Use a period.
"Who's coming to dinner?" is a question. Use a question mark.

The confusion occurs because the command contains an imbedded question.

Here's a similar case. In this case an exclamation is imbedded in a command.

"Look how red I've gotten in the sun." (Command. Use a period.)
"How red I've gotten in the sun!" (Exclamation. Use an exclamation mark.)

CJ

CalifJim

Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004

California

Veteran Member (17,003)

"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche

Question marks, Exclamation marks